Thousands are protesting the police killing of Michael Brown, an unarmed African-American teenager in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson. Four miles south in the quietude of Calvary Cemetery, lies Dred Scott, the man born a slave who famously fought for his freedom in the courts.

The Obama administration’s espionage case against alleged CIA whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling is expected to come to trial soon, six years after he was indicted. In addition to Sterling, also on trial will be a central pillar of our democratic society: press freedom.

Five years ago immigration advocates praised Obama for closing down the only large-scale detention center for immigrant women and children. Now it has quietly two new family detention facilities that have more than 1,200 beds, and cribs.

“I hate war,” Koji Hosokawa told me as we stood next to the A-Bomb Dome in Hiroshima, Japan. The skeletal remains of the four-story building stand at the edge of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. The world watches in horror this summer as military conflicts rage, leaving destruction in their wake from Libya, to Gaza, to Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Ukraine. Never far from the dead and injured, nuclear-armed missiles stand by at the alert, waiting for the horrible moment when hubris, accident or inhumanity triggers the next nuclear attack. “I hate war,” Hosokawa reiterated. “War makes everyone crazy.”

In Part 2 of our conversation, Kabul-based journalist Matthieu Aikins talks about the disputed Afghan election, U.S.-backed militias committing war crimes, and the future of the country after the U.S. military drawdown.

McClatchy Newspapers has revealed the CIA has been spying on emails from whistleblower officials and Congress, "triggering fears the CIA has been intercepting the communications of officials who handle whistleblower cases."

Part two of our interview with acclaimed MIT physicist Theodore Postol, who says there is no evidence Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system is actually working. He estimates the Iron Dome, which is partially built by Raytheon, intercepts just 5 percent of rockets fired at Israel.

The Israeli assault on the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip has entered its fourth week. Henry Siegman, a venerable dean of American Jewish thought and president of the U.S./Middle East Project, sat down for an interview with the Democracy Now! news hour. An ordained rabbi, Siegman is the former executive director of the American Jewish Congress and former executive head of the Synagogue Council of America, two of the major, mainstream Jewish organizations in the United States. He says the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories must end.

In New York City, a group of demonstrators blocked traffic by laying down in the streets outside Israel’s Mission to the United Nations on Tuesday. Twenty-six people were arrested after refusing police orders to disperse. The action was organized by the author and scholar Norman Finkelstein.

One of the greatest challenges in understanding the situation in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories is getting reliable information. This latest assault on Gaza reaffirms the key role played by the U.S. media in maintaining the information blockade. It also highlights the increasing importance of pressure applied by social networks.

Children are still fleeing violence in their native Central American home countries, seeking safety, at great risk, in distant lands. The issue is widely described here in the United States as a “border crisis,” but it isn’t that. We are experiencing a profound failure of economic globalization and U.S. foreign policy, amplified by failed, stagnant immigration policies here at home.

A Swedish court today upheld an arrest warrant for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. He is wanted in Sweden for questioning on allegations of sexual misconduct, though no charges have been filed. Watch our recent extended three-part interview with Assange inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

Legendary jazz bassist and composer Charlie Haden died on Friday in Los Angeles at the age of 76. He was one of the most politically outspoken jazz musicians of his time. Watch him discuss his music and politics in a 2006 Democracy Now! interview.

Chilean hip-hop artist Ana Tijoux performs some of her songs and talks about the political themes behind them. Tijoux was born in France in 1977 to parents who were jailed and later fled Chile under the Pinochet dictatorship. "Hip-hop is the land of the people that don’t have a land," she says.

By Amy Goodman with Denis Moynihan
Sixty miles off the coast of Sweden, in the Baltic Sea, sits the island of Gotland. Every summer, for one week, tens of thousands flock here to participate in a unique public event known as Almedalen.

Amy Goodman with Denis Moynihan — What price would you pay not to kill another human being? At what point would you commit the offenses allegedly perpetrated by Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who was charged Wednesday with desertion and “misbehavior before an enemy?”